Orange blossom water adds a wonderful fragrant component to this Blood Orange and Watercress Salad.
Orange Blossom Water
Orange Blossom water is the clear distilled perfumed water that is obtained in the essential oil extraction from the blossoms. It is a quintessential part of Moroccan and middle eastern cuisine. Whenever this is used in a dish i always feel like am walking through an orchard of oranges. This is funny because i have never done it in my life and this is how i imagine that experience would be. This is sweetness through aroma. This lifts our blood orange and watercress salad to a sweet and and aromatically playful dimension.
Our beautiful little Tajines
On our recent work trip to Germany we stumbled upon a wonderful shop named CasaOrient in Vaihingen near Stuttgart. A few tajines with catching decorations lured us in. Soon we found out from the owner and a very helpful lady who was able to translate that they also carried bigger versions. Unfortunately i could not bring back the bigger tajines because of baggage restrictions i did add them to the wishlist. These are the cooking tajines and have un-glazed interiors for the conical lid. Tajines are used in morocco and Tunisia to make delightfully slow cooked and moist meat and vegetables. The steam is absorbed by porous top and is channeled back down because of conical top keeping a hot and moist evenly heated cooking environment.
The tajines that i had eyed are then meant to serve food that was cooked in the cooking tajine and are more catching to the eye. They also have glazed interiors. I picked out two different sizes of patterns i loved and could not wait to come back home and use them to serve some food.
These were the beauties we picked up.
Our blood orange and watercress salad recipe
The blood orange and watercress salad also has some indian touches. The dressing is without oil which is true of some indian salads. It also uses a pinch of cumin which is a spice happily shared in moroccan and indian cuisines.
We cut the blood orange into cuts known as supremes. The dressing is made from a squeeze of lemon, a dash of orange blossom water and a pinch of cumin. We finsih with dry toasted pine nuts.
Print
Blood Orange and Watercress Salad with pinenuts and orange blossom dressing
- Total Time: 10 mins
- Yield: serves 2
Description
a simple salad which uses orange blossom water to create a very fragrant dressing
Ingredients
- 0.5 cups washed and picked leaves of watercress
- 1 blood orange peeled and cut into supremes
- 1 tsp orange blossom water
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 0.25 tsp cumin
- 0.25 tsp or less salt
- 1 tsp dry toasted pine nuts
- 4 to 6 small mint leaves
Instructions
- mix lemon juice and orange blossom water and cumin and dress the watercress and drizzle over blood orange segments
- add the watercress to the 2 small serving bowls or plates
- top with the blood orange supremes
- add the toasted pine nuts and the mint leaves
- this makes 2 smal bitel plate portions
- Cook Time: 10 mins
- Category: salad
- Cuisine: moroccan
